Human Microbiome: Understanding Microbial Risks and Resilience

This seminar is arranged on the occasion of Ahmed Bargheet's public defense of his dissertation for the Philosophiae Doctor degree.

Programme

0915-0945
Dr. Anne Salonen, University of Helsinki:

Title to be announced

Dr. Salonen from the University of Helsinki studies the human microbiome, particularly how various factors, such as diet, affect the intestinal and female reproductive tract microbiota. She is the director and principal investigator of the Human Microbiome Research Program at the University of Helsinki's Faculty of Medicine. She leads the Finnish Health and Early Life Microbiota (HELMi) birth cohort study, which investigates how lifestyle and clinical practices affect a child's microbiota development.

0950-1020

Dr. Rebbecca A. Gladstone, University of Oslo:

"Understanding variation in invasive disease potential within bacterial populations"

Dr. Gladstone is a senior researcher at the University of Oslo, Dept of Biostatistics, affiliated with the Probabilistic Inference Laboratory. Her research focuses on microbial genomics and bacterial population genomics, antimicrobial resistance, vaccine impact and design, and genomic epidemiology of bacterial pathogens.

1025-1040

Gaute Hovde Bø, UiT:

"Dynamics of gut microbial metabolites and response to probiotics in early life"

1045-1100

Kenneth Lindstedt, University Hospital of North Norway (UNN): 

Title to be announced

Ahmed Bargheets PhD defence will take place in Cortex in the MH2 building on August 21 at 12:15, with the trial lecture on August 20 at 10:15. The trial lecture has the title: “Assessing the clinical relevance of ARGs and the burden of ESKAPE pathogen-drug combinations”.

Dissertation Title:

"Dynamics of Infant Gut Resistome and Mobilome: Impact of Gestational Age, Antibiotics, Probiotics, and Other Early-Life Factors"

Ahmed's dissertation, conducted within the Research group of Host-Microbe Interaction at the Department of Medical Biology, UiT, investigates the interplay between early-life factors and the development of the infant gut microbiome. His work explores the impact of gestational age, antibiotics, probiotics, and other factors on the infant gut's resistome (the collection of antibiotic resistance genes) and mobilome (the collection of mobile genetic elements). 

We look forward to your attendance and a lively academic discussion.

Sincerely,

Veronika Kuchařová Pettersen

Førsteamanuensis/Associate Professor in Microbiome Research
Host-Microbe Interaction and Pediatric Infection Research Groups
Centre for New Antibacterial Strategies
Department of Medical Biology, Faculty of Health Science
UiT Norges arktiske universitet

Oral antibiotic treatment of infective endocarditis - the POET study and beyond

Presentation by Professor Claus Ernst Moser, University of Copenhagen, Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Bacteriology

Read more about Professor Moser on the University of Copenhagen webpage.

Microbiome-pathogen-host interactions in Clostridioides difficile infection: Nutrients, signals, and future interventions

Presentations by Andrew Hryckowian.

Judy L. And Sal A. Troia Endowed Professor in Gastrointestinal Disease Research. Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Medicine and Medical Microbiology & Immunology, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Read more about Andrew Hryckowian in the University of Wisconsin webpage.

How can we protect newborn babies from dangerous germs?

Research fra CANS shows that multiple factors play a role in helping a baby develop a healthy gut.

Did you know that the youngest babies carry a lot of potentially harmful bacteria in their guts?

They have plenty of unpleasant bacteria like Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Klebsiella pneumoniae. 

These are all potentially dangerous bacteria with genes that make them resistant to antibiotic treatment.

With underdeveloped immune systems, infants are at a higher risk of infections. The situation can become very serious if the bacteria causing the infection turn out to be resistant to treatment with antibiotics.

"We found that infants delivered via Caesarean section and babies born prematurely have a higher load of antibiotic resistance genes compared to those born vaginally."

- PhD candidate Ahmed Bargheet.

Read the whole story in sciencenorway.no

PS - Ahmed Bargheet defends his PhD thesis on Thursday 20 August. The defence will be streamed.

Finland's first giant virus discovered

Giant viruses. What are they, what do they do, and do they have any antibacterial properties?

Dive into UiT and CANS-researcher Gabriel Almeida's story about how they found Finland's very first giant virus in a compost heap at a university. 

Probiotics reduce AMR carriage, new study shows

In a 2000 strong cohort among newborn babies in Tanzania, the abundance of antibacterial resistant E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae decreased by 7 percent when given probiotics.

The study did not find any significant reduction of hospitalization and deaths among the infants, but the reduction in AMR carriage could mean less AMR on a societal scale. 

Access the study in The Lancet Global Health here.

The study was funded by the Western and Northern Norway Regional Health Authorities (Helse Bergen and Helse Nord), The Trond Mohn Foundation, and Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR).

Corresponding author: 
Nina Langeland, CAMRIA (Combatting Anti-Microbial Resistance with Interdisciplinary Approaches)

Arnfinn Sundsfjord  –  Professor

Kontaktperson for AMR Bridge, og ansvarlig for prosjektet ledet fra Tromsø.

Pål Jarle Johnsen  –  Professor

Lars Ailo Bongo  –  Professor

Klara Stensvåg  –  Professor

Jørgen Berge  –  Rector

Gunbjørg Svineng  –  Dean

Arne O. Smalås  –  Dean

Benjamin P. Howden  –  Professor

Deniz Tasdemir  –  Professor

Ursula Theuretzbacher  –  Dr.

Jörgen Johansson  –  Professor